Maurice Compte Signs with Zero Gravity Management for Representation

Maurice Compte has zeroed in on new representation…

Zero Gravity Management has signed the Cuban-American actor-producer.

Maurice CompteCompte is best known for portraying Pablo Escobar’s nemesis, Colonel Horacio Carillo, in the first two seasons of Netflix’s Narcos.

His other major credits include his villainous turn opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña in David Ayer’s police actioner End of Watch, and the STXfilms crime drama, Den of Thieves, in which he appeared alongside Gerard Butler.

Compte currently appears as Detective Mike Duarte on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and has also been seen on such notable series as Mayans M.C.Breaking Bad, Power and From Dusk Till Dawn, among others.

Other notable film credits include Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Ayer’s DEA crime pic, Sabotage.

As a burgeoning producer, Compte’s goal is to spotlight elevated and visceral stories with authentic cultural underpinnings. He is currently a co-executive producer on Hotel Cocaine — an upcoming crime drama from Narcos creator Chris Brancato that’s headed to MGM+. The show tells the story of Miami’s infamous Hotel Mutiny, where Compte’s father Roman was general manager during the drug-fueled 1980s.

Banijay Developing ‘Reconciliation’ Documentary Project Featuring Pablo Escobar’s Son & Rodrigo Lara’s Son

Pablo Escobar’s son’s reconciliation story is headed to the small screen…

Banijay is developing a documentary project about Escobar’s son’s extraordinary reconciliation with Colombian politician Rodrigo Lara’s son Jorge, whose father’s death was ordered by the drug kingpin.

Lara vs EscobarLara vs. Escobar is being produced by Banijay Benelux JV Scenery and distributed by Banijay Rights.

BAFTA-winning director Mags Gavan said she dedicated over a decade to get access for the feature, which delves into Rodrigo Lara’s Escobar-backed murder and the incredible fallout. Upon learning of his father’s death, Jorge Lara was initially out for revenge but a twist of fate reconciled him with the son of Escobar, one of the most notorious criminals of all time, as he realized that they had more in common than he thought. The docuseries will be told via double narrative, weaving between past and present.

Escobar has long been a subject of fascination and the story of his attempted assassination was told in recent BBC doc Killing Escobar.

“Our expansion into the premium feature documentary space is led by this extraordinary modern-day story and with no hesitation we decided to take this gripping project to market,” said Simon Cox, Banijay Rights EVP Content Acquisitions.

Lara vs. Escobar is a reconciliation tale like no other, bringing two of the unlikeliest of friends together to find common ground, with a plot as powerful of some of the world’s best dramas.”

Gavan added: “I started the most inspiring journey which also took me through the worst tragedy whilst developing this film. It’s going to take the audience on the same emotional rollercoaster but hopefully leave them in better, more hopeful place”.

Wagner Moura to Star in the Action Epic “Civil War”

Wagner Moura is headed to War

The 45-year-old Brazilian actor, who rose to global acclaim after starring in Netflix’s Narcos, will star in Oscar-nominated filmmaker Alex Garland and A24 for Civil War.

Wagner Moura

In addition to Moura, the action epic also stars Kirsten Dunst, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Cailee Spaeny.

Garland will direct the film set in a near-future America from his original screenplay. Details as far as its plot are being kept under wraps.

A24 will produce, alongside Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich of DNA and Gregory Goodman, and handle the film’s global release.

Garland received his first Oscar nomination in 2016 for his Ex Machina screenplay and has also garnered accolades over the course of his career including a DGA Award and three BAFTA Award noms, among others.

He’s previously teamed with A24 on Ex Machina, as well as Men, a horror-drama starring Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear that is set for release later this year.

He also helmed the 2018 film Annihilation and created, wrote, directed and executive-produced the FX on Hulu series Devs.

Moura is best known stateside for his Golden Globe-nominated turn as Pablo Escobar in Netflix’s Narcos. He also wrote, directed and produced the film Marighella, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and will next be seen in the Apple TV+ series, The Shining Girls.

Wagner Moura to Star in Apple TV+’s Metaphysical Thriller Series “Shining Girls”

Wagner Moura has a shining new role…

The 44-year-old Brazilian actor, filmmaker, musician, journalist and Narcos star has been cast as a lead opposite Elisabeth Moss in Shining GirlsApple TV+’s metaphysical thriller series.

Wagner Moura

The series, based on Lauren Beukes’ 2013 best-selling novel, comes from Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way and MRC Television.

Created and written by Silka LuisaThe Shining Girls book centers on a Depression-era drifter who must murder the “shining girls” in order to continue his travels.

Moura will play Dan, a veteran journalist breaking the widening story of a copycat attack. Moss plays a Chicago reporter who survived a brutal assault only to find her reality shifting as she hunts down her attacker.

In addition to starring, Moss executive produces via her Love & Squalor Pictures. MRC Television is the studio.

Moura is known for his scene-stealing role as real-life drug cartel boss Pablo Escobar in the first two seasons of Narcoswhich earned him a Golden Globe nomination. He recently was seen in the Netflix thriller Sergio and is set to co-star in Gray ManJoe and Anthony Russo’s next big-budget action film at Netflix. 

Moura is repped by WME, Brent Travers and attorney Greg Slewett.

Netflix Renews José María Yazpik’s Drug-Trafficking Drama “Narcos: Mexico,” Without Star Diego Luna

There’s more narcos action in José María Yazpik, but it won’t include Diego Luna

Netflix has ordered a third season of the 49-year-old Mexican actor’s drug-trafficking drama series Narcos: Mexico. However, the show will come back without its lead Diego Luna, who portrayed drug cartel leader Félix Gallardo.

José María Yazpik,

Season 2 ended with Luna’s Gallardo sentenced to prison for his drug trafficking crimes and there had been much speculation he wouldn’t return if the series was renewed for a third season. Luna is set to reprise his Cassian Andor character in Disney+’s Star Wars spinoff series Rogue One, which is currently in pre-production.

Series co-creator Carlo Bernard will be taking over day-to-day showrunning duties from Eric Newman, who is stepping back after five seasons. Newman will continue to executive produce the series alongside Bernard, Jose Padilha, Sidonie Dumas, Christophe Riandee, Nicolas Atlan, Doug Miro and Andrés Baiz.

Wagner Moura, who starred as Pablo Escobar during the first two seasons of Narcos, also will return to the series, directing two episodes in the new season.

“I am grateful for my five years at the helm of Narcos and Narcos: Mexico and am immensely proud of what this spectacular team has achieved with these shows,” said Newman. “Carlo Bernard is the first person I ever spoke to about this project, over ten years ago, and I am extremely pleased to leave the steering of Season 3 of Narcos: Mexico in his very capable hands.”

Set in the 90s, when the globalization of the drug business ignites, Season 3 examines the war that breaks out after Felix’s empire splinters. As newly independent cartels struggle to survive political upheaval and escalating violence, a new generation of Mexican kingpins emerge. But in this war, truth is the first casualty – and every arrest, murder and take-down only pushes real victory further away.

In addition to Yazpik, returning cast members for season three include Scoot McNairy, Alberto Ammann, Alfonso Dosal, Mayra Hermosillo, Matt Letscher, Manuel Masalva, Alejandro Edda and Gorka Lasaosa.

In addition to Moura, Andrés Baiz, Alejandra Marquez, Luis Ortega, Amat Escalante will direct on Season 3.

Season 2, which premiered in February, is currently streaming on Netflix.

Narcos: Mexico is produced by Gaumont for Netflix.

Pluto TV to Stream All Five Seasons of Wagner Moura’s Netflix Series “Narcos”

Wagner Moura is traveling to Pluto…

All five seasons of Netflix’s Narcos, starring the 44-year-old Brazilian actor, will premiere next week on Pluto TV.

Wagner Moura in Narcos

It will be the series’ first streaming run on a free, ad-supported U.S. platform.

The distribution plan, which involves a partnership with Gaumont, will kick off on October 20. Narcos will be streamed across four different linear channels on Pluto, whose ad-supported service now has 26.6 million monthly active users. There will be multiple airtimes in both English and Spanish.

Narcos will stream on Pluto TV’s Crime Drama and Narco Novelas channels and its own branded single-series, marathon-style channels – Narcos and Narcos en Español.  Spanish-speaking versions of Narcos will stream with English subtitles, and respectively, English-speaking versions of Narcos will stream with Spanish subtitles catering to multi-lingual audiences.

Season 1 of Narcos will stream weeknights at 10PM ET, with catch-up episodes the following day beginning at 8PM ET. Bonus weekend marathons will be offered following the series premiere. Pluto TV will debut a new season each month through February 2021.

Narcos has been part of innovative distribution deals before. It aired on Univision in a major cross-promotion in 2016, marking an unusual reverse path for a series from streaming to broadcast TV.

Pluto, which is owned by ViacomCBS, is known for being entrepreneurial and building channels around individual shows, as it did with The Walking Dead. A bilingual approach also makes sense given its international expansion. also has been expanding internationally. It also launched Pluto TV Latino, a Spanish-language offering, in 2019.

“As the adoption of ad-supported streaming continues to accelerate, we are excited to build on that momentum and align with esteemed creators and producers in search of new ways to introduce audiences to their coveted collection of award-winning content,” Pluto SVP Content Strategy and Global Partnerships Amy Kuessner said. “Working in partnership with Gaumont, a longtime pioneer in the world of streaming, to bring the acclaimed Netflix Original series Narcos to Pluto TV is further testament to the evolving free streaming landscape that is rapidly gaining foothold for prestige partners, game-changing content and audiences alike.”

Moura earned Golden Globe and Imagen Award nominations for his performance as notorious drug cartel leader Pablo Escobar on the series.

Wagner Moura Signs with William Morris Endeavor (WME)

It’s a new endeavor for Wagner Moura

The 44-year-old Brazilian actor, filmmaker, musician and journalist has signed with William Morris Endeavor (WME).

Wagner Moura

Moura, a Golden Globe nominee for his role as Pablo Escobar in the Netflix acclaimed series Narcos, was previously represented by UTA.

He can currently be seen starring in two Netflix films; Sergio, which he also produced, and Wasp Network, opposite Penelope Cruz and Gael Garcia Bernal.

Wagner made his directorial debut with Marighella, which premiered at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival.

His other credits include Walter SallesBehind The Sun for Miramax, Sony’s Elysium, opposite Matt Damon, and Jose Padilha’s Elite Squad, which won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.

Jesse Garcia to Star on Netflix’s “Narcos: Mexico”

Jesse Garcia is joining the drug war…

The 36-year-old Latino actor has landed a series regular role opposite Diego Luna and Michael Peña on Narcos: Mexico, the upcoming fourth season of Netflix’s drug trafficking drama series.

Jesse Garcia 

After three seasons in Colombia in the pre- and post-Pablo Escobar world, Narcos has moved to Mexico, where it explores the origins of the modern drug war by going back to its roots, beginning at a time when the Mexican trafficking world was a loose and disorganized confederation of independent growers and dealers.

The new installment follows the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s as Félix Gallardo (Luna) takes the helm, unifying traffickers in order to build an empire. When DEA agent Kiki Camarena (Peña) moves his wife and young son from California to Guadalajara to take on a new post, he quickly learns that his assignment will be more challenging than he ever could have imagined. As Kiki garners intelligence on Félix and becomes more entangled in his mission, a tragic chain of events unfold, affecting the drug trade and the war against it for years to come.

Garciawill reportedly portray a DEA agent who volunteers for a dangerous assignment in Mexico.

Garcia played Ranger Freddie Gonzalez in the El Rey Network’s From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series and stars in the upcoming feature film Collision. Best known for his award-winning film Quinceañera, Garcia’s television work also includes Edward James OlmosHBO movie Walkout and recurring roles on Sons of Anarchy, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and The Shield.

Narcos: Mexico premieres November 16 on Netflix.

Discovery Channel Announces All-New Pablo Escobar Series, “Escobar’s Millions”

It’s a treasure hunt for Pablo Escobar’s millions…

Discovery Channel has announced its fall slate, which includes the all-new series Escobar’s Millions.

Pablo Escobar

At one time the most wanted man on the planet, the late Colombian drug lord buried masses of his estimated multi-billion-dollar fortune all over Colombia.  Legends say the vast majority of it has never been found.  With never-before-granted access and Colombian government support, two former intelligence officers armed with the skills and training from 10 years of work in the CIA go on the hunt for the alleged hidden treasure in the all-new series.

 

Escobar’s Millions, to air later this year, is produced for Discovery Channel by Network Entertainment and Blackfin.

Teaser Clip Released for Penelope Cruz & Javier Bardem’s Pablo Escobar-Themed Film “Loving Pablo”

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are sharing the Loving

The 43-year-old Spanish actress and her 48-year-old actor-husband have shared the first clip of their latest film, Loving Pablo.

Penelope Cruz & Javier Bardem in Loving Pablo

Directed and written by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, the story is based on the book Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar by Virginia Vallejo, the Colombian journalist who had a volatile affair with drug lord Pablo Escobar.

Bardem and Cruz play the lovers.

It’s a reteam for Bardem and De Aranoa after 2002’s Goya-winning Mondays In The Sun. Bardem says it took him quite a while to get Loving Pablo together. “I was attracted to playing Pablo Escobar, for many years now. It was around 1998 that I started to be intrigued by this character as a person. And since then I’ve been offered other Escobar roles, but I always refused them because there wasn’t any feeling beyond a stereotype.”

The story chronicles the rise and fall of Escobar and his relationship with Vallejo throughout a reign of terror that tore a country apart. Peter Sarsgaard also stars.

Bardem elaborates, “I think one of the themes that we are working with is what the word ‘enough’ means. Enough of wanting to get some place, wanting to have more, wanting to be better, bigger, stronger, and what kind of effect it has on a person’s mind when there is never enough. For Pablo, nothing was ever enough, he always wanted more and he had all of the resources and the tools to become stronger and more powerful. That will eventually destroy a person’s mind.”

The unravelling of Escobar’s relationship to the people in his life is key to the film. “That’s why it’s called Loving Pablo,” says Bardem, “because this movie is through Virginia’s eyes but also it’s through all the eyes of all of those who loved Pablo Escobar on a personal level and envied and admired him also as a savior. Our movie is about what happened when they ultimately discover what kind of a person he really is and the world that will leave behind.”

Although Cruz says she’s never met Vallejo, she has “studied about 800 hours of various interviews and shows that she did as a journalist and TV presenter. She is the one that trained Escobar and taught him how to use the media to communicate, how to deal with the press, how to address the public. In his political career, she became a significant figure.”

Cruz adds: “When you portray a character like Virginia, I can’t judge her or justify her. I have the feeling she didn’t know quite what she was getting into. As an actor, I just have to try to understand what was going through her mind when she made some of those decisions. After a while, when she wanted to get out of that relationship, she couldn’t, and that affected her life in so many different ways. There were some scenes that were very hard-core, very hard to play because you had to go to those places. And for me, it was important that this movie was not glamorizing the world of the Narco. I feel like some of those scenes have to leave you with pain in your stomach. It cannot be a gratuitous violence. I think that our film has accomplished that.”

Loving Pablo will have its world premiere next week at the Venice Film Festival. It will also screen at the San Sebastian Film Festival where it’s the closing-night pic.